Doubts over abolition of QOF as BMA continues to negotiate indicators

Exclusive GP leaders have met with NHS clinical chiefs to discuss altering QOF diabetes indicators next year, casting doubt on whether the QOF will be abolished in next year’s GP contract, Pulse has learnt.

NHS England diabetes experts have held talks with the BMA's GP Committee and NICE to look into how indicators could incorporate more flexible targets to ‘individualise’ treatment and said that the proposals could be published ‘in a few months’.

But this comes after NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens has said that the QOF has reached the 'end of its useful life', while the 2017/18 GP contract announcement included a stipulation that a working group would be set up 'to discuss the future of the QOF' after 2018.

Other GP leaders said that these negotiations over indicators suggest that the QOF will continue beyond this year.

Speaking to Pulse, NHS England associate clinical lead on diabetes Dr Partha Kar said his team had met with GPC to discuss the option to introduce more flexibility in the targets to help GPs tailor treatment better, for example in older, frail people in particular.

Dr Kar said: ‘There is a bit of a “baby and bathwater” thing here with cutting QOF. We met with the GPC officially, as we accept that there are some bits of QOF that wear you down, but there are some bits of QOF a diabetes patient does need.

‘For example on HbA1c, can we say, if the patient is over 75 and has frailty their target to hit the marker is 9%, not 6.5%. NICE says there is flexibility to do that, so we could put that in the QOF. ‘

He added: ‘That discussion is going on with BMA GP group at the moment – hopefully that will come out in the next few months or so.’

GPC confirmed to Pulse it has met with NHS England and NICE bosses on diabetes targets specifically and said this would be part of ‘any future review of QOF’.

Dr Richard Vautrey said: ‘We have met with Dr Kar and raised our concerns that some aspects of QOF, including the current diabetic treatment targets, make it hard to individualise treatment for some patients, particularly the frail elderly.

‘This is something we will be considering as part of any future review of QOF.’

Dr Vautrey stressed that ‘all that has been committed to for the coming year is for that negotiation to take place’.

Asked if this was meant the QOF was likely to continue in 2018/19, Dr Vautrey said: ‘I don’t think we can say either way... there are many who will still want to monitor the quality of care delivered and want to extract data relating to that and what we want to very careful of is we don’t end up with something that leaves practices in a worse situation.’

Dr Peter Swinyard, chair of the Family Doctors Association, said: ‘It’s very strange isn’t it, because we have been sort of promised that the QOF is going to die.’

He added: ‘If you are going to carry on with the QOF, then yes make it more flexible but if you’re not, well… Nero was very good at playing the violin wasn’t he.

‘I’d much rather the money was just recycled and available for practices.’

Enough of useless banter or 'talks'. Time to scrap QoF and the Carr-Hill scam. Rurality payments have been scrapped in England, as per latest info from NHSE, Deprivation is being paid in hidden indicators on your Exeter statements which even NHSE and Capita can't identify. What a blooming circus NHSE has created with protection from a Tory government.

Please do not get rid of QOF and the QOF funding stream. Ending QOF will just result in us doing the same work, or being sanctioned by CQC.
Meanwhile we will end up having to pursue another government agenda to maintain the same level of income.

I think there is an argument here where certain specific parameters like HBA1c not reaching target(s) , money is not provided if QOF is to stay in this fashion .
The other side of the coin , to me , in fact , is why a practice cannot reach the targets. Then , it may even paradoxically mean the practice needs more help in resources(money , manpower, expertise and time ).
A reward/penalty system hence does not necessarily provide the solution(s).
I fancy a ballot for a vote of whether QOF should be completely abolished .

I'd like to see QOF go to be replaced with something that more realistically meets peoples needs. However I've got a nagging doubt that QOF cash will be recycled straight to everyone's favourite outsourcing firm or some sort of 'Transformation' plan...

It's all semantics. If QOF is ditched it will likely be replaced by another form of micromanagement. How many other three letter acronyms are there already in place which are effectively QOF in another form? How many mechanisms are there already for the local CCGs to withhold funding on the basis of some soul sapping money saving scheme? Arguing about blood result percentages within a funding system which is fundamentally suffocating is like rearranging the grains of rice on our pathetically inadequate prison ration. We need proper funding, not circular energy wasting negotiations over percentage points on a subset of patients' surrogate end points (e.g HBA1C). We need to step the argument back a level and focus on total funding levels. Anything else is bull.

QoF data is as vulnerable to manipulation as is your global sum through the formula. Right now, the payments for QoF are being re-calculated as Practices have protested after identifying underpayments and miscalculations. Not sure whether this is another traditional Kent NHSE event or it is nation wide. Anybody else come across this?